The computer industry's devotion, commitment and adherence to support long existing BIOS (basic input/output system) functions have advantageously helped fuel the wide-spread (i.e., global) acceptance of computers and the explosion of the computer industries. However, such commitment and adherence have likewise been found to result in disadvantages as follows.
More particularly, BIOS has historically been embodied as an assembly language (i.e., machine code) program which is first loaded (even before the operating system (OS)) when a computer is started, and which provides the most basic, low-level, intimate control and supervision operations for the computer. More specifically, BIOS performs functions such as: POST (power-on/self-test); acting as an intermediary between different hardware; setting up (i.e., defining) cacheable memory space, finding/loading the OS (operating system).
With regard to setting up (i.e., initializing) of a system, typically within processor systems, a portion of memory will be set aside for use as cacheable memory space to serve as a fast internal cache memory for the purposes of “caching” slower physical memory in the system in an overall effort to increase the system's performance. The size of the portion of memory set aside for cacheable memory space may vary greatly from system to system, e.g., the cacheable memory space may be 64 MB (i.e., mega-byte), 106 MB, 3.5 GB (i.e., giga-byte), etc.
Historically, BIOS programming has been embodied in a singular or small number of monolithic blocks of intertwined assembly or machine code, such monolithic nature being illustrated by the singular dashed block 11 drawn around all of FIG. 1 BIOS functions. Intertwining often meant that changes were very difficult to make, as changes in one portion of the code often affected the operation of a remaining portions of the code. Accordingly, BIOS code is disadvantageously very difficult to write, debug and/or change. In view of BIOS' difficult assembly language programming and debugging, hardware companies typically have relied upon BIOS specialist companies (e.g., American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), Award Software, Microid Research (MR), Phoenix Technologies Ltd.) to provide BIOS code.
The desire for adherence to long existing BIOS code and the complexity of BIOS have sometimes resulted in complacency in the industry, resulting in minimal or no advances in some of the BIOS functions. The BIOS function of setting up of cacheable memory space is one function in need of improvement.